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At one point in his career, Padraig Harrington may well have been the best golfer on the planet. Sure, Harrington never reached any higher than No. 3 on the Official World Golf Rankings, but he won both of the final two major championships of 2008 after a fifth-place finish in The Masters earlier in the year.
Harrington struggled to maintain that form in the years to come, but he seemed to be back on track entering the 2011 U.S Open at Congressional Country Club. That is, until a 22-year-old Rory McIlroy showed up and all but ended Harrington’s career at the highest level.
Rory McIlroy’s masterclass at Congressional at just 21 was enough to shift three-time major winner and one of golf’s mentally toughest players, @padraig_h, from a positive mindset to a negative one—altering the course of his career. pic.twitter.com/KudKC1x0Lb
— Cookie Jar Golf (@cookiejargolf) February 23, 2025
“Where I was broken, Rory broke me in 2011,” Harrington said on the most-recent episode of the “Cookie Jar Golf Podcast.” “[He] broke everybody, but I was the best player. That’s what I believed. So I’ve gone into Congressional. I played a practice round with Adam Scott on Wednesday. He came in and did an interview and told everybody to go home. He says, ‘You might as well go home. Padraig Harrington is winning this.’ I am, in my head, I am the best player. I’ve won three majors just recently. I’m in great form. I prepared right.
What Harrington did not account for however, is that a fresh-faced McIlroy would come in an absolutely blow away the Field. McIlroy shot a first-round 65 in soggy conditions to take a three-shot lead and never looked back. He led by six shots entering the weekend, eight after the third round and eventually won by eight shots over Jason Day.
“I go into this tournament and Rory does something that I can’t compete with,” Harrington said of the performance. “Wipes the floor. Like we’re all the same. He’s just blown us all away. But that’s OK if I thought I could get better. That’s fine. So when Tiger was doing that in the early 2000s, I was only on my way up. This is me at my best and I don’t think I can compete with him.”
Harrington explained that he was never able to regain that level of confidence in his golf game. He was always trying to run down McIlroy, but didn’t believe he could reach that level.
McIroy went on to do something similar a year later in an eight-shot victory at the PGA Championship. He also won the PGA and Open Championships in 2014. But ironically, the 35-year-old has never regained that form, failing to win a major championship now in over a decade.
As for Harrington, he posted three more top-10 finishes in his career at majors. But he hasn’t truly contended for a victory since, and now, at 53, the hopes of doing so are essentially out the window.